Lost to the Mist
by Azure K Mello
Summary: COMPLETE! What would have happened if Xander had found Angel? SLASH


Title: Lost to the Mist and/or There is Always a Lost Scene  
  
Rating: R  
  
Author: Azure K Mello  
  
Disclaimer: Joss, not me.  
  
Part: 1/1  
  
Pairing: Angel/Xander SLASH  
  
Spoilers/setting: Graduation Day part two with mutilated flashback to Beauty and the Beast.  
  
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Buffy and Angel were standing in Giles' office sorting out the weapons they would need for the mayor's ascension. After telling Buffy that he was leaving there was bad blood between them and neither really spoke. He had told the girl he was going because the temptation was too much and he couldn't lose his soul it would be too painful. The truth was he *couldn't* lose his soul, at all. The Powers That Fuck About had made sure it was pretty affixed as tightly as a good pair of shackles. The truth was he didn't want to hurt the girl but he didn't *want* her either. "I'm not going to say good-bye." He said softly looking at the table top. Angel glanced up at her, seeing the look on her face he looked back down, swallowed harshly then looked back up. "If we get through this." he said, "I'm just going to go. You understand?. . . There is just too much to." Buffy put up a hand to stop him. Angel nodded and looked down before leaving the room again. He didn't want to hurt her, but she wasn't who he wanted. She wasn't the person he needed. And that one person he needed more than blood. And it had taken Angel too long to get the boy let him go now. . .  
  
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Months before the group had been worried. Some odd killings occurred just around Oz's "time of the month". The Scoobies went into over time, someone sat with Oz every night. Buffy had meant to go patrolling that night but Xander had suggested that she stay with Oz because if he was doing the grizzly crimes Buffy could get straight at the root. The slayer hadn't liked the idea but Giles offered to get her a pint of ice cream and she had quickly conceded.  
Xander wandered around the woods for ages expecting not to find much. Volunteering for the job had seemed like the best plan to get out of going to the morgue with Willow and Cordy, that place gave him the wiggins. He heard a crack behind him, not loud but creatures of the night seldom were. He raised a stake as he twirled only to be confronted by a tableau that confused him. There stood Angel completely naked and seemingly mad. There was blood all around his face but his visage was that of a human. There was no recognition in his eyes and for reason Xander himself could not fathom it upset him. He stood there staring as the vampire stalked towards him, he swallowed harshly as the realization hit him that he wasn't willing to kill the man, not when he was so clearly fucked up beyond belief. And when Angel went for him Xander simply repealed the demon. The force of Xander's instinctual push caused Angel to hit his head hard on a tree, there was an audible crack when the two met and Angel fell to the ground unconscious.  
Not knowing what to do Xander picked the vampire up and brought him to the mansion. There he found shackles left on the wall by Drusilla. While his morals told him not to lock up a cataleptic his mind told him to do it before Angel attacked him again. He stopped dead when he saw a burnt silhouette on the floor. It looked at though someone had laid there while the ground burned around but not underneath them. "You gotta love the PTB's idea of a ticket home." He said. He sensed as apposed to saw Angel wake.  
Angel lunged for him but Xander easily avoided capture at the hands of the chained vamp. "Hi," he said not sure if Angel could hear him. "You know I wanted Buffy to kill you?" he said laughing a sudden bark of mirthless anger. He sank to his knees just outside of Angel's reach his sobbed and odd dry sob. After a few moments of introspection he sighed, and stood again leaving the room to find a phone and call the library to say he was sacking it for the night.  
When he came back he saw Angel on his knees, sobbing, his arms taunt above his head. Xander gulped and was shocked by the mixed emotions that assailed him. Wasn't Angel "a fucking evil blood sucker" who deserved to die? Did he deserve to be so tortured, scared, and confused. "I'm not going to tell the other's you're back they would come and pester you, but I'll spend as much time here with you as I can. I'm so sorry. I'm gonna try and help you. Do you understand anything I'm saying?" he sighed. "I know you didn't do all these killings. I don't know if you heard about them, they're pretty bad. But I know you didn't do them, I think you're just freaked out." He felt the oddest urge to hold the vampire to stop him from shaking and rocking so much. He looked around the room and saw an armchair in the corner. Pulling it over he put it just inside Angel's reach, without getting close, and stepped back. Angel looked up into Xander's face, the boy wasn't sure if he imagined it but he could have sworn he saw gratitude in his eyes. Smiling slightly he said, "I'm gonna go home and get some clothes, my parental units won't notice if I'm not there for at least a week. I'll be back within the hour. . . with a pint of blood." He waited for a response that he didn't expect to come. "I'll be back."  
  
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Everyday Xander went to school and as soon as the bell rang he was at the mansion with blood and comfort. He slept on a couch in the room with Angel. He didn't want to let the man out of his sights and he thought that maybe his presence would help the vampire. His friends were confused and angered by his absence. He told them that a friend had moved to Sunnydale and he was helping him settle in. He refused to tell them who it was saying, "I told him I wouldn't tell anyone and my confidence to him is more important than passing you two idle gossip, sorry."  
For hours he would talk about the goings on of the group to Angel, filling him in on missed time. The boy prayed that his voice wasn't as annoying to the vampire as it was to himself. When he got sick of talking about petty subjects he would find books to read aloud to Angel. They got through Tolstoy's better works within a week. Xander slept only a little each night preferring to stay wakeful with the nocturnal man. Throughout the day he would be listless but the minute school let out he got a second wind. Each night he would pull the couch a little closer to Angel until one night after three weeks he was close enough to touch the man.  
Reaching out slowly Xander brought a hand to the vampire's face. Angel spooked and shied away from the contact making a low whine noise. His whipped his hand away as if he'd been burned. "I'm sorry," he said quickly, "I won't touch you, I'm sorry. You're safe with me I swear." His voice cracked suddenly. "God, Angel, what did they do to you? God, I just wish. . . I wish a lot of things. . . but you never wish when you live above a Hellmouth, it's too dangerous." Now the tears were falling down his face. "I'm so sorry, love." He said using the term of endearment that seemed to have naturally worked itself into his mind. "What the fuck did they do to you? I won't hurt you. But, god, please don't whimper like that because it scares me."  
His voice was rough from disuse but his sentiment was clear when Angel looked into his face, "Would you just hold me for a while?"  
Shocked at the question and the very fact that it had been asked Xander's face broke into a smile as he wrapped his arms around Angel. He stroked Angel's back as the man wept into his shoulder. Slowly rocking back and forth, Xander kept whispering that he was so proud of Angel "god, so proud, love.". They stayed like it for hours. Come the morning Xander had phoned the school claiming to be his own father and that he wouldn't be in. He popped out for blood and then spent the rest of the day holding Angel. He took off the shackles after confirming with Angel that he wouldn't bolt into the sun lit street, Angel hadn't responded in anyway but it was a good enough reply to Xander's ears. Angel clung to Xand while the boy got up to heat some blood and a bagel in the microwave. Xander shushed him softly and sang to himself and his limpet. He rocked his hips as Angel stood behind him with his hands on Xander's waist. "Two little boys had two little toys. Each had a wooden horse. Gaily they played each summer's day. Warriors both of course. One little chap then had a mishap. Broke off his horse's head. Wept for his toy then cried with joy. As his young playmate said. Did you think I would leave you crying. When there's room on my horse for two. Climb up here Jack and don't be crying. I can go just as fast with two. When we grow up we'll both be soldiers. And our horses will not be toys. And I wonder if we'll remember. When we were two little boys."  
"That's Scottish." Said Angel softly in Xander's ear.  
"Nothing for weeks on end, and then two sentences in 24 hours? That's kinda freaky and good. And, yeah well, the only Irish song I think of was Danny Boy and I didn't want to start up another crying jag quick so soon. And while Two Little Boys is a sad song it's also Scottish so you can just focus on hating the Scots."  
"That's very well thought out."  
"Thank-you, I try." He said leaning back into Angel's embrace and resting his head in the joint of the vampire's neck and shoulder.  
"You succeed."  
Xander blushed and knew damn well that the vampire would hear his heart quicken. Sometimes he hated his traitorous body. "Umm, so hey, do you wan me to tell Buffy?" asked Xander softly. He felt Angel tense and said. "It's ok, it'll only happen when/if you ready and willing. She need never know if you want. I'm not going to rat you out, Angel."  
"Why did you, are you, doing all this, Xander? I've never liked me, hell you said yourself that you were cheering for my demise." It was Xander's turn to tense up.  
"I knew I needed to help you the minute I saw you. I honestly don't know why or how but I just knew that that was what needed to happen."  
"Thank-you." Said Angel.  
"You don't need to thank me, in fact it makes me feel slightly sick that there is anything that needs to be thanked. This all sucks, none of it should have ever happened. Was. . . . was it hell?"  
"In name and description." Said Angel softly in a haunted tone. "I spent a hundred years there and you tell me it was the span of summer break. And it wasn't a fun one, there was no rack or hot irons. No, I had to get sent to the one with Nixon and Brittany Spears and Chinese water torture. But I'm here now."  
"You're safe." Said Xander for the zillionth time. It seemed slightly ridiculous now that Angel was up and talking.  
The thought clearly occurred to Angel as well for he said with a warm voice. "Why is it that at 240 years of age I only feel safe in the arms of a seventeen year old boy?"  
Xander shrugged. "And hell you could be considered 340, I mean what with the hundred years in hell."  
They both laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. A soft ping heralded the readiness of lunch. Xander handed the mug of blood to Angel as he turned around taking a bite of the now hot bagel. Angel watched the boy, put down his mug, waited for him to swallow and then pulled him roughly to himself for a harsh kiss. At any moment he was expecting the stake to be placed in his heart. Xander's tongue darted across his lower lip begging to be admitted. Finger wandered into hair. Xander broke away only to breathe.  
"What about Buffy?"  
"I don't even want to see her let alone be with the girl."  
"But you want me?" asked Xander with an incredulousness that made Angel want to kill ever person who had ever told his boy that he wasn't good enough.  
"I've *always* wanted you. *Always*, Xander."  
"Yeah?" said Xander with a smile. "But what about?"  
"The Powers made it so that I can't lose it ever again. What good is a champion of the light if he goes bad every once in a while?"  
"Ya really want me?" asked Xander. Angel didn't even dignify the question with an answer and instead claimed the boy's lips.  
  
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Angel stood by the fire truck surrounded in smoke. Buffy saw him and their eyes only met for an instant before he turned and left. As he rounded the fire truck he smiled at his boy. "I guess we did alright." He said wrapping a curl around his finger. Xander smiled though he was clearly exhausted. "I'm going tomorrow." He said softly. He thought he saw a flicker of hurt on Xander's face. "Come with me? Please, Xan?"  
"I'm already packed." Said Xander trying to make his voice flat and completely devoid of emotion, he failed miserably. The thing was, that while he got that the rules of decorum for dating said don't get emotional at everything: he wanted to. He wanted to jump up and down, possibly to cry at the feel of actual being wanted by someone, and to pull Angel under the fire truck for a quicky as it was he had to resign himself to a smirk. Angel just smiled at him.  
"So what are you going to tell the guys?" he asked softly while pulling Xander closer by looping his fingers through Xan's belt loops.  
"I'll tell them I'm driving to all fifty states."  
"Xand-"  
"Don't you dare patronize me and say 'what about Hawaii?'. I think that adds the perfect amount of poor, dear, simple Xander Harris that they know and love."  
"Fuck them." Said Angel with the vehemence which he now reserved purely for Xander's supposed friends.  
"I thought you said we were exclusive." Joked Xander. "I better go before they come looking for me. Love you."  
"You too, Xan. The mansion tonight?"  
"No, we're gonna go to the *other* place we go to every night." He said with soft sarcasm. "My bags are already there." He said with a smile and kissed Angel chastely. "See you in a few hours."  
"After tomorrow can we never come back here?" asked Angel as Xander walked away.  
Turning and walking backwards Xander said. "Only weddings and funerals." 


End file.
